The effectiveness of aerobic exercise on CD34+ stem cells and the amount of platelet production and the duration of hospitalization, in patients who are candidates for autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Exercise may play a role in regulating hematopoietic function as an activator and stimulator of hematopoietic stem cells. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of one week of regular aerobic exercise on the mobilization of CD34+ stem cells and the amount of new platelet production and the duration of hospitalization in leukemia patients.

In this clinical trial study, 39 patients with an average age of 46.93 ± 14.76 including 22 men (56%) and 17 women (44%) who were candidates for stem cell transplantation were randomly divided into two experimental (18 patients) and control groups (21 patients). Both groups received G-CSF. Patients in the experimental group did one week of treadmill training, but the control group did not receive any intervention. Blood samples were taken from patients immediately after training, during hospitalization and at discharge. In order to analyze the data, t-tests and SPSS 22 were used

CD34+ cells increased after training in two groups (p< 0.0001), but there was no significant difference between the two groups. The average amounts of platelets at the time of discharge in the experimental and control groups were 88687 ± 75077 and 42714.29 ± 32023 per microliter of blood, respectively, and it showed a significant difference between the two groups (p= 0.01).

Combination of G-CSF treatment and one week aerobic exercise have a positive effect on the amount of blood platelets in patients undergoing autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation.